Lesson: Extension and Contraction of the Right Hand

This is from my Lesson of the Week segment of the site. The idea of Extension and Contraction is so common for the left hand but rarely practiced in the right hand. I’m using Exercise 21 from Ricardo Iznaola’s Kitharologus: The Path to Virtuosity (Amazon). This book starts off super easy but gets gradually more difficult (to high…high levels). However, I love how sequential and progressive the book is, it’s probably the best book I’ve seen for guitar. Just don’t get your hopes up about finishing the book because it truly for those in it for the long run. You can find more free lessons at the lesson archive page. For more free weekly lessons join the Email Newsletter for updates and please consider donating to the site or sharing this post.

Help Support the Site

Support the site. You're reading one of the most popular independent classical guitar publications online. The website, newsletter, and lessons are available to everyone for free. But it’s difficult and expensive work. Corporations and social media have caused falling revenues across the web making it increasingly challenging for independent publishers. If you value the website, newsletter, free lessons, or sheet music, please consider offering your support to keep its future sustainable and secure. – Bradford Werner

Related Posts

1 Comment

Thanks and super timely. I spent about 5 or 6 hours working on this exercise earlier this week. (If you had posted the video a week earlier, it would have been even more timely.) BTW – you’re right about the book being intense, it took me about a year and half to get through the first level…. I hope it doesn’t get even more intense.

One thing. I notice you didn’t say much about specific hand position, finger angles, etc. Not sure if that was intentional. IME working on the exercises in Izanola’s book causes you to develop good position/technique without really thinking about it because you can’t get really good tone if you don’t, and your hands seem to figure this out naturally by trial and error as long as you are using your ears. Or….. am I just being naive? Thoughts?